I am now in Iowa City, where it is very cold (-10C). Luckily I have a nice place to stay in for a few days before I move on to Chicago, and then New York and then London and Roma. Later I will go to Nijar, Spain, for an exhibition of my watercolors and pastels, a few video installations and a few films subtitled in Spanish.

A dear friend of mine, Nathaniel Dorsky, is in Lisboa now and will be screening some of his films at the Cinematheque on Saturday, Nov. 22 (the same night I show Coming to Terms in Chicago.) He makes the most lovely silent color films, with no “story” but rather an immense feeling for life. If you can go – it’s only a walk from where you live – I highly suggest you go. Tell your friends, too. And if you do, stay and say hello to him, and tell him who you are – he is a most wonderful person.

I am in Santa Fe now, after traveling from Salt Lake, through Monument Valley, to Phoenix, and then through Navajo and Hopi and other tribal lands, to here. There’s a screening going on right now of Coming to Terms and I go talk after. For now a few moments to send you some snapshots from my travels. I’ve seen some wonderful landscapes I hope some day you are able to see. Amo-te, Teu pai,

On the road, beginning of a long journey. Left Butte a night ago, stopped to see my friend Swain in Missoula (a writer – Swain Wolfe, you can look him up), who helped me pack up some pastels to send for an exhibition in Almeria, Spain, in January. And today along the Bitterroot Valley, and into the Salmon River area of Idaho. Just ate, and next to find a place to sleep in the van. Here’s some pictures from the day.

In another week I take off from Butte for a long trip – don’t really know how long or to where. I go from here to Missoula, and then to Salt Lake City, then Phoenix/Tempe AZ, Santa Fe NM, Lincoln NE, and finally, toward the end of November, to Chicago. I’m going in my new/old (1996) van. Along the way I’ll be doing screenings of new work – mostly Coming to Terms, and shooting for a huge new film on America – called Plain Songs. I’ll also shoot lots of photographs, and send them along to you. More later.

Summer is drawing to a close, and I suppose you are preparing for school. I imagine you had some time on the beach, down in Cabanas. I hope you had a good time there and where ever else you might have been. I’ve been in Butte, being a little lazier than normal: finishing two new films which I just sent off to festivals, some photography, practicing a few songs, and now rather late, some pastel work. Shortly I will go to Glacier to shoot for a few days, and then later to Montreal for 4 days, and in October a long trip to show films, make some money, and begin seriously to shoot a long essay film about America, Plain Songs. That will take two years and more and I will be doing it with Marcella. For now though I’ll go to Salt Lake City, Phoenix Arizona, Santa Fe, NM, Lincoln, Nebraska, and finally to Chicago, and then I suspect to Europe for several festivals there. Perhaps I’ll come to Lisboa too if this all happens.

Teu mai,circa 1997

And now to continue the story of your Mother and me. As said in the last letter, we began living together in earnest in late Spring of 1995, in Lisboa. For a while we stayed at the Casa de São Mamede, not far from where you are living now. We later moved to an older apartment in Graça, one with a long outdoor porch. There I started to seriously try my hand at painting and pastels, something I had long wanted to do, while Teresa busied herself with what one must do after finishing a film. I recall going with her to the Venice Festival that year, where Maria de Madeiros won Best Actress for her role in Tres Irmaos. Your mother was already busy thinking of her next film, Os Mutantes. That autumn, a bit after the festival, we moved to London, where Teresa worked on her script, and I also worked on one, and kept on doing pastels. For a while we lived in an area called “Little Portugal” near the Portobello area of London, and then moved to a large nice apartment on Wilmington Square. I began going to museums to sketch, and learn, and sometimes your Mother would come along – the visual arts were, despite her being a filmmaker, something new to her.

Joana and Teresa

Your mother found a producer for her film, a Frenchman named Jacques Bidou, based in Paris. I received an offer to do a film for the arts exposition Dokumenta, a once every five years affair in Kassel Germany, and one of the biggest such things in the arts world. They offered me a million dollars to do whatever I wanted. The head of the exposition that year, a French woman apparently famed in the arts world, came to visit us, wearing glasses as thick as the bottom of a Coke bottle, and clearly nearly blind. I should have understood this was a bad sign, but at the time I didn’t perceive this.

Teresa and your father in happier times

After the winter in London, your mother and I went for a month to a place near Aberdeen, where I was researching the film I thought to make for Dokumenta. Your mother worked on her script. Afterwards we went to Portugal, to spend a month in Cabanas. There you were conceived. And there your mother went to the local pharmacy – a place I can still clearly remember – and bought a little pregnancy test kit. She pee’d on a little strip of paper, and we waited. It turned the appropriate color, and we both looked at each other, and both said “yes.” I was 53 and your mother was 29.

Cabanas, 1997, from Nas Correntes de Luz da ria Formosa

In this time our relationship was accepted by your Mother’s family, though there was a clear sense that it was a bit odd, the difference in our ages. Marília and Alberto, Joanna, and Manuel all accepted me, I think all knowing that it had been Teresa’s pursuit and interest, and not a case of an older man taking advantage of a much younger person. I think they were very impressed that I had gone to prison instead of into the military, and also with my career as a filmmaker – at the time I’d had a retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in NY, and was in that small world much respected. So they, and Teresa’s friends, all took me into the family – including Serge Treffaut, Joao Pedro Rodrigues, Vera Mantera, Inez and Maria de Madeiros, and Vasco Pimental. They all became my friends, and in the case of Serge, Joao Pedro, Vera and Inez, I worked with them all or helped them in their work. They, and a few others, were all a very tight group of friends – whom I had been cautioned by another friend, an Italian who for some time was director of the Venice festival, were a “Lisbon mafia.” To say they were a closed group, highly protective of each other, in a way working as a group. I was to learn later how true this was.

Serge Treffaut

In the same summer, your grandfather Alberto, Teresa’s father, was seriously ill. He had gone early in 1996 to Angola, supposedly to help the government there. In truth he was a serious alcoholic. I don’t know if he had always been so, though I suspect so. Or perhaps, I think when the Soviet Union collapsed, his spirit also collapsed as his faith in “communism” was devastated. In the year I had to know him a bit, he would always offer me something to drink, as he said “some hard liquor.” Whiskey usually. I declined, not wishing to encourage him and seeing he had a problem with drinking. None in his family did anything to discourage him from his habit, and your Uncle Manuel seemed almost to encourage him, always taking Alberto up on another glass. I recall Christmas of 1995 being at Marília and Alberto’s apartment near Vila do Franca Xira, and your grandfather getting so drunk he literally fell under the diner table, and was able for the next days only to come out of bed for a few minutes for obligatory festivity things. None in the family said a thing or tried to help him stop drinking. The next month he left for Angola, where I imagine he sat in a hot hotel room and in effect drank himself to death.

Back in Lisboa your grandmother Marília was, at the same time, having an affair with one of her comrades at the offices of the Portuguese Communist Party, where she worked. His name was Grillo, and he seemed nearly blind. Marília’s children did not seem to approve of this. In late spring of 1995 Alberto returned to Lisbon, seriously ill and hospitalized. Having been around a handful of people when they were dying, I cautioned your mother that she should prepare herself for his death. At the time she dismissed these thoughts. Marília would go to visit in afternoons, and then go to Mr. Grillo’s apartment to stay. I was told that the week before he died or so, he was informed that Teresa was pregnant and that you were on your way into our lives. I was told his response was, “Oh, Jono!”

Alberto died on August 19, 1996. Marília spent the day with Alberto’s body and then the large courtage wended its way to Cemeterio do Prazers, full of Communist stalwarts and journalists, and I walked along, with your mother and family. A month later your grandmother Marilia moved in with Mr. Grillo. It had been a convenient death for her. Perhaps the family’s disinterest in helping him had some reason, though at the same time Marilia’s children did not seem so happy with this.

A friend of mine in Rome, having known Teresa a bit, and having seen three of her films, commented to me that she thought perhaps there was some very unhappy story within the family, perhaps sexual abuse, which might explain what I observed. Of course, I don’t know, nor did any of the family ever mention it to me.

I will write again when time allows – in a day I am off to Montreal for a short trip, and two weeks later I will take off in my van for a long trip, one which may take me to Europe in December.

I think it is your last year before you will go to college if that is what you want to do. I hope you enjoy the coming months and year, and are successful in your studies and whatever else you choose to do. Life is about to open many doors for you, and I hope you can fully realize for yourself what you want to do.

I will be ready to see you as soon as you wish, and are able to do so.

Amo-te

Teu paijon

PS: if you wish to know a bit more of this time, you can go back to the letters I began in 2009, here: